The Station Square Experiments
by StrawberrySeamstress
Summary: Amy Rose has a job, conquers the city, meets a mechanic, uncovers some secrets, saves some lives, begins a conspiracy, and finds exactly what she didn't know she was looking for; Scourge the Hedgehog gets a job, has a secret identity, drops some anvils, scores one for the criminal underworld, gets another job, moves in, moves back out, and gets everything he never knew he needed.
1. EPILOGUE: Everyone I Love Is Dead

EPILOGUE: Everyone I Love Is Dead

0.

Things probably wouldn't have happened if Amy hadn't led the monster in a particular direction.

She might've, when she thought about it, led it towards Headquarters, where she'd've gotten backup, or down a back alley, where….okay, she probably would have died, then. But things would have happened differently, that was the point. It took going down a particular road, and stopping in front of a particular building, to get the attention of the mechanic and end up with an anvil dropped on the monster's head via a rather clever pulley system and some brute strength.

Which kind of said something about reality, probably, and the thin and changeable nature of everything; but Amy couldn't be bothered to think of what it was, because one second she was being menaced by a shadow creature that wouldn't go down when she hit it, and the next second there was an anvil on the thing's head and it was on the pavement.

"Huh," she said, a vast understatement by all accounts. "Anvil trumps everything, I guess. Who did that?"

She wasn't expecting a response, much less a coordinated point from three oily men and an even more oily woman to the top of a nearby building, where the tiny figure of a hedgehog stood on the edge, holding his arms out like he had just dropped an anvil.

"…Stay right there!" Amy called. "I'll be right up!"

He didn't stay right there.

By the time Tails came around with the backup, Amy had realized that it was not the weight of the anvil (which had been more than matched by her hammer swings) but rather the material that took down the monster, being cold iron. A new weakness for their latest menace discovered, so all in all it should have been a success. It would have been a success, if not for the sudden disappearance of Amy's savior.

She tried talking to the other mechanics, but they were decidedly unhelpful.

"He keeps to himself," said the woman when she asked, her voice rough and scratchy. "Doesn't talk much. I don't even know his name."

The boss knew his name—Morph—but not where he lived. Morph was, apparently, a ghost. A ghost who knew how to discern the various weaknesses of shadow monsters terrorizing the populace, and who had enough ingenuity to rig up a pulley system to get an anvil out far enough over the monster's head, quickly enough to stop it, which he had apparently started doing when Amy was three blocks over, just in case.

The more Amy heard the more she really wanted to meet this guy. If only to thank him for saving her life, and see if maybe they could recruit him, if he turned out to be good enough.

But he'd disappeared into the city. So Amy left her card with the boss of the mechanic's shop, told him to call her when he came back into work—but to do it quietly, so that he didn't run off again—and went home for the evening, to research cold iron and ancient legends of what could kill the same things cold iron could.

(The answer, generally speaking: salt, sage, and wooden stakes. Amy put the last one on the backburner and bought a five-pound bag of rock salt from the hardware store just in case, then she went to bed, because it had been a very long day.)

She was in the middle of her exercise routine at the Headquarters gym the next morning when her phone rang. Unsurprisingly, it was the manager of the place, telling her that Morph had shown up for work as usual, and that he was scheduled until eight that evening.

Amy wiped off her forehead with a towel, and, without bothering to change out of her sweats (they were nonthreatening and probably wouldn't scare the weird man with a fear of government and knowledge of what killed shadow things), went to catch the bus.

And that was when things really began. Because again; changeable nature of reality. She could have let it go. She _should_ have let it go. The Commander had already told her that if Morph hadn't wanted to talk to them, he wasn't going to press because the man had been undoubtedly a help, if a help from high up and a long way off, and if he wanted his privacy then he had earned it by giving them their first real insight into what made up the shadow monsters. She should have let it go, let Morph go about his life and her go about hers. She shouldn't have pressed.

She pressed anyway, took the 45 bus down to City Center, and made her way down to the back alley with the mechanics.

I.

Amy Rose, clad in matchy-matchy sweats and carrying her hammer, her short hair pushed back by a headband, entered the mechanics shop at eleven-thirty with a little ding of a bell. It seemed weird to have that kind of bell. It was dainty, almost; it didn't match the tone of the shop, which was covered in oil and grease and filled with overall-wearing humans and Mobians yelling things at each other that Tails would probably understand and Amy did not.

She made her way to the back, where a sign proclaimed that it was the manager's office, and knocked quietly.

"Come in."

She did so. "You said Morph showed up?"

The boss, a tall thin man (more than twice Amy's height) with greying hair and spindly fingers, stood. "I did. Follow me, he's in the back—I thought he'd be less likely to see you come in there."

"Good plan." Amy trailed behind him, quickly tossing her hammer into the pocket dimension she kept it in—she didn't want to scare him away, after all. "So what's he like?"

The boss shrugged. "Doesn't talk much. When he does, it's…rough. He hasn't got much tact to him. Has a lot of clever ideas, though, and he's been places—Hannah says. She's the only one he really talks to, mostly cause she doesn't tell us what he says. He values his secrets, to be sure."

"I can get behind that." Amy nodded. "I won't keep him long, I promise, I just want to chat a bit."

The boss waved. "No worries. City hero and everything, call it my civic duty for the day to let you take one of my employees aside."

Amy gave a smile of thanks and headed into the back room.

The hedgehog she presumed was Morph was stacking shelves, with his back to her, and Amy took a minute to study him. He wore the same stained overalls as the rest, over a shirt in a really weird shade of greyish purple, and his fur was messy and brown, his quills short and badly cut—or, more like, they'd been cut badly and left to grow out even worse. When he turned around, she noticed glasses perched on his muzzle, but she also noticed a distinct lack of _lenses_ in the glasses.

That was weird. That was probably weird, right?

He froze up at the sight of her, staring warily from the top of the stepladder. Amy waved. "Hey there. Morph, right? I'm Amy Rose. I wanted to talk to you."

"About what?" His voice was rough, and vaguely familiar, like she'd heard it in a dream before. It also conspicuously lacked an accent, from the city or anywhere else. That was definitely weird. Amy was calling it.

"I just wanted to thank you for saving my life yesterday." She hovered around the door, not stepping forward for fear of spooking the man, just shifting her weight from foot to foot. "And probably the lives of several others. That was the first time we saw one of them show weakness, the first time we got one to go down for good—not just run off."

"…You're welcome, I guess." He rubbed the back of his head with his hand and removed the glasses, tucking them into the pocket of his overalls. "Look, this is—this is really awkward. I just wanted to see if it would work, okay? So, you can go, it wasn't a big deal."

Amy narrowed her eyes slightly, clasping her hands behind her back. "I also wanted to ask if you might be at all amiable to talking with G.U.N. about the incident. I know they'd love to get more information on—"

"No!" The interjection was panicked, and for a second his voice changed. In the split second she couldn't quite tell what, but there was something even more familiar about it. He cleared his throat, and it was back. "No. That's—that's fine. I don't love talking to people."

"That's…fair." Amy eyeballed him. "Look, at least let me take you to lunch or something. I probably would have died if you hadn't dropped the anvil on that thing. I mean, it seems cartoony, but it _worked._"

He looked suspicious, one hand tugging at the strap of his overalls. "…Just lunch."

"Just lunch."

"No secret government spies?"

"None but me. Are you a conspiracy theorist or something?"

He didn't answer the question. "And you won't bother me again after that?"

"Cross my heart."

"Fine. Where are we going?"

Amy grinned.

II.

Amy was one for local secrets. She'd discovered the best place to eat in the city shortly after moving in, when she sampled everywhere she could during lunch for a few weeks and finally chosen. Every day since she'd eaten a meal at Mephisto's Café, which had good sandwiches and hand-crafted beer from a local brewery.

This was, of course, where she took Morph, ordering for both of them while he fidgeted uncomfortably in the wooden chair. When she returned with two cream-cheese sandwiches, he took his and didn't eat it, instead drumming his fingers on the table.

Amy was starting to feel bad about that. "Look," she said when she'd finished half her sandwich and he'd pulled about twenty little crumbs off the crust of his, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't've bothered you so much, I just….kind of felt a little indebted." She scowled. "I hate feeling indebted. Don't intend to do it again."

He laughed shortly, poking at the sandwich with an unusually long fingernail. There were traces of paint around the edges, but Amy couldn't tell if it was leftover nail polish or paint from the shop. "Yeah. I can understand that. It's not your fault I'm not fond of the government." A pause. "Well, it kinda is, but…okay, shutting up now." He tore off a chunk of the sandwich and shoved it into his mouth.

"No, keep going." She tilted her head. "Got something against G.U.N? Or…the Freedom Fighters?" The first of those was probably the more likely. G.U.N didn't have a great P.R department, to say the least. There was a reason she insisted on proper payment from them. No volunteering for that particular hole of moral ambiguity and edgy immortals.

"You could say that." He shrugged, seeming to relax slightly and taking another bite of his sandwich. "Haven't had great experiences with law in the past."

She snorted. "Got a criminal record?"

His tone was light. "Something like that."

She paused. "Oh. Well. Still, can't hold you to that. You saved my life."

"Yeah, you might not be harping on that so much if you knew more about me."

"I wouldn't be harping on anything if I knew anyone, but I don't. Guess I'll have to get to know you."

He slowly set the sandwich down. "I don't think that that's the best idea."

"Whyever not? You looked like you were finally loosening up a bit." She hesitated, then laughed. "Wait, do you think I'm asking you out? No! No. Just to be friends. I…could use a few friends that aren't also coworkers."

Morph gave a lopsided little smile to his plate. "Now, what's wrong with coworkers? I happen to be kinda fond of a few of mine."

"My coworkers are great, there's nothing wrong with them! But…" She sighed. "I probably shouldn't be telling this to a civilian, much less one I just met, but it's always work with them. No matter how much we try to just have a _normal night_, somehow it always comes back to the job we just worked, or what so-and-so thinks will be the next mission, or how much I got paid."

"What, like your coworkers don't get paid?"

She shrugged. "Not many of them do. They think G.U.N's doing the right thing, and they volunteer."

"And you don't."

"And I don't. I mean, I think they usually have good intentions, but….if I'm going to be doing things that have the kind of consequences I've seen later on, I'm gonna need sufficient remuneration."

"How much is sufficient?" The question was mostly joking, but with an underlying curiosity. Amy studied Morph again, but couldn't for the life of her find anything in his expression other than the curiosity, and, of course, the ever-present nervousness.

So she laughed and took a bite of her sandwich, and through the bread and cream cheese and cucumber mumbled "Kissing a million, for some of the longer jobs."

Morph sat back heavily in his chair, looking at her with evident awe. "Didn't think you had it in you, Rosie. Goody-two-shoes like you, I saw you on the news all the time…"

"When I say a longer job, I mean a year or so." She shrugs. "Fate-of-the-world stuff. And I like the finer things in life—sue me."

"I would, but I feel that you could hire better lawyers than I could."

"You're not wrong." She finished off her sandwich and pushed the plate to the side of the table. "Thank you for having lunch with me, even if you were reluctant."

He hesitated, then put his own plate aside and dug a leaky pen out of his pocket. He grabbed her hand—bare now, bare for a few years, she'd given up the gloves—and scrawled something on the back of it before standing, shoving his hands in the pockets of his overalls, and hurrying out the door.

Amy stared after him, then at her hand, where he had written a phone number and a large M. She grinned a little and paid the tab before heading out, whistling as she strolled down the street to her apartment building.

"Mr. Morph," she said to the wind, "I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

She got it mostly right. But you can't fault a girl a few mistakes.


	2. The Government Has Stolen All My Friends

Note: Just getting this story up to date with where it is on Ao3.

CHAPTER ONE: The Government Has Stolen All Of My Friends

I.

Amy Rose lived on the ninth floor of a very nice apartment building in City Center, which meant that it had high rent, snobbish neighbors, and got attacked by aliens a lot. Last year a whale had fallen onto the roof. A space whale. The top two floors had been crushed flat, which was fine by Amy since she didn't live there and no one who did was indoors at the time (the whale had the serious gall to fall from the sky during the All Building Backyard Let's Pretend We Don't Hate Each Other Barbeque), but was inconvenient because of the construction later on.

Still, she liked her apartment. It was a good size, and it had everything she needed, and she could pay the rent with one or two big jobs. And she was allowed to paint the walls, which she had done so. They were lovely shades of yellow now. (Not pink. Pink seemed a little off for the walls of an apartment for a woman of nineteen. She did paint the bathroom a pale pink, because baby steps.) There was a kitchen, with everything a kitchen needed, the bathroom had both a cool claw-footed tub and a really nice shower that Amy spent thirty minutes figuring out the night she moved in, her bed was enormous and fluffy and had several quilts, two down comforters, and about eleven pillows, and she had a game system that supported Rock Band and most racing games for when she hosted Team Bonding Night.

She liked her apartment. Even if it was so empty when the rest of the team wasn't over, the dishes all washed and put away, her work for her current case spread out on the big desk in the bedroom, the couch usually passed over.

II.

Amy decided not to go back to work after meeting Morph for lunch. Instead, she went home, and spent a while perusing a website that let her watch free cartoons, selected one she hadn't seen that looked pretty good, and watched a few episodes while cooking dinner.

For a while there at the start she'd done the bachelor-pad thing and just had takeout and macaroni all the time, but then she'd discovered that cooking was _fun,_ that it took her mind off things, and that she happened to be stellar at it. Everyone got lots of leftovers, from her friends to her standoffish neighbors to that guy who chose the treadmill next to hers every week and didn't ogle but just kept upping his speed to match hers as she giggled. She was pretty sure he would ask her out soon. If he didn't, she just might. She missed having someone around, even just for casual dating.

So Amy chopped vegetables and worked away on a soup that would take a while to make, but was really delicious, and also used truffle oil in truly obscene quantities. She would take everyone portions in Tupperware containers the next day and tell them to add salt because her soups had the annoying tendency to evaporate all extraneous seasonings overnight, every night.

She set it on to boil—the longest process, what would make it actually _dinner_ and not just _meal that I am having immediately following lunch_—and settled down with her laptop and a set of cold-case files on various escaped prisoners from several years prior. The Commander had set her on this particular assignment immediately after getting it, confident that she could find something in it that the original analysts couldn't.

He'd been so pleased when they got the order in the first place. He smiled, which for anyone else would've been dancing around the conference room throwing paper in the air like dollar bills in a rap video. "The Zone Cops are on everyone's ass all the time, superior bastards," he'd said. "Rose, I want you to take the cold case files. Anything you can find at all related to them is good. Shadow, you're on this active case, Tails, this one. First one back to me gets a bonus."

Amy had plenty of bonuses, but she'd been eying up a particularly nice wool coat and hat in her favorite window-shopping store for some time, and the cold case files were pretty interesting. And the Commander was right. The Zoners were more stuck up than her neighbors, and Mrs. Faraday two doors down carried her small yappy pet in a purse and wore fur stoles and high heels.

She'd been spending the past couple of days just rifling through the files, methodically sorting them into piles based on how much info each provided, and then sub-sorting them by time. She'd just hit a set of eight or nine all dated the same—a major prison breakout of some sort.

She pulled them to herself and began to flip through, slowing down as she recognized the faces and filled with dread.

"Ah," she said to herself, opening each file and laying them out side by side. "So that's what happened to them."

Three faces she didn't recognize and five she did. Fiona Fox, Flying Frog, Lightning Lynx, Predator Hawk, and Sgt. Simion. She was beginning to get an idea of what might be in the last file.

She opened it up and sighed. "I hate being right all the time."

The final file was laid out atop the rest, the thickest of the lot. Scourge the Hedgehog, Houdini extraordinaire, missing but presumed alive for the past four years. Just like the other five. Just like, she assumed, the other three who had managed to take advantage of the opportunity (really, who was she kidding, she'd met the guy—he'd absolutely orchestrated a mass breakout). No wonder the Zoners gave the Commander this job. Even if he did manage to find something they missed, it'd be dangerous to follow up.

Amy grinned.

A challenge was always appreciated.

She grabbed the coffeepot and turned it on, selecting her favorite playlist as it dripped into a cup, and pulled her chair in close to the desk.

"Alright, boys, let's see what you have to say for yourselves."

III.

_Unknown Sender said: _How goes, Morphy?

_Unknown Sender said: _This is Amy btw.

_You said:_ Thanks. Woulda blocked your number.

_Amesy said: _Haha! Don't blame you.

_Amesy said: _This is a little awkward. How's work?

_You said:_ Work's good.

_You said:_ Hannah threw a thing of motor oil into a customer's face.

_You said: _She's not allowed to do customer service anymore.

_Amesy said: _Oh my god.

_Amesy said: _Hannah's your friend?

_You said: _Something like that.

_You said:_ Sorta a friend, I guess.

_Amesy said: _No such thing as sorta a friend.

_You said:_ Don't be so sure.

_You said: _Hang around someone long enough, they're always sorta a friend.

_You said:_ But I mean

_You said: _Hannah and I don't hang out or anything

_You said:_ We just bitch at work together.

_Amesy said:_ Ahhh I see

_Amesy said: _Does this happen often with you?

_You said:_ Does what?

_Amesy said: _Having sorta-a-friends.

_You said: _Nah. No friends is more common.

_Amesy said: _You don't hang around people.

_You said: _No I do

_You said_: I just

_You said: _Ugh

_Amesy said:_ You're really contradicting your own points here :-)

_You said_: No shit Sherlock

_Amesy said_: Are we sorta-a-friends then? We did talk a lot at lunch.

_Amesy said:_ I probably accidentally spilled some major secret I wasn't supposed to

_Amesy said:_ You better be friends or I'll get fired probably

_You said: _Haha fine

_You said: _We're sorta friends

_You said: _Don't expect me to go meeting up with you again

_Amesy said: _wouldn't dream of it

_You said: _….textings okay tho

_Amesy said: _:-)

IV.

_Amesy said: _hey you know like

_Amesy said: _the city

_Amesy said: _and the criminal underworld

_You said: _I'm not sure I like where this is going.

_Amesy said: _haha relax I'm not accusing you of anything

_You said:_ good because I didn't do it

_Amesy said: _I just wanted to know if you'd heard anything about a few people I'm investigating.

_You said_: shoot.

_Amesy said: _Fiona Fox, Simian, Lightning Lynx, Flying Frog, Predator Hawk, Scourge the Hedgehog

_Amesy said: _They might have other names

_Amesy said: _heard anything about any of them in the past couple months or years?

_Amy said: _hey you there?

_Amy said_: a little worried that like

_Amy said: _they found your phone and took a hit out on you or something

_Amy said_: hellooooo

_Amy said: _you're probably at work

_Amy said: _well lmk if you hear anything

_You said: _I was at work

_You said_: but I haven't heard those names

_You said: _outside of the news a few years ago.

_Amy said: _that's about what I expected

_Amy said_: thank you anyway

_You said_: welcome rosie :-)

V.

Amy met up with Morph for lunch again two days after their first meeting, because she was starting to get frustrated with the cold case files. Shadow and Tails's teams hadn't had any more luck with their missions, but it was still…annoying. Four years ago, a mass breakout of unknown source happened at the Zone Jail, and the six likely perpetrators had disappeared off the face of the multiverse. No one had seen or heard anything of them since, even though it would have been the obvious assumption that they would immediately start wreaking havoc.

No havoc. Not even a bit of mild mayhem. Barely anything that could even be attributed to them simply because no one else did it.

So Amy invited Morph to lunch and, much to her surprise, he accepted. They met at the café this time, Morph out of his work clothes and Amy in a T-shirt and jeans.

This time he ordered for himself, with the kind of authority that a regular customer would have. Amy must have looked surprised, because he shrugged and explained. "I liked the sandwich when you brought me here, so…I've been coming back every other day or so. The boss likes me."

"This place has a boss?"

"Yeah. He wouldn't show himself to you."

"What, is he in the mafia or something?" Amy was half-joking, but the lack of a response outside of Morph's stony gaze made her expression drop. "Oh."

"I dunno if it's the mafia but he's in with something, and you're a cop."

"I'm not a cop. I'm a special agent. They bring me in when the cops don't do their jobs."

Morph sniggered. "Anything else you can tell me about your job?"

"Not unless you join." Amy shrugged and took a bite of her sandwich. Through her mouthful she continued. "Not that I'm telling you to join. I mean, you could if you wanted to, but you seem to like your job."

He shrugged. "My job's okay. Cars make sense. You fix them and then they're not your problem anymore. It's pretty great." He poked at his fruit salad with a fork. "So yeah, I think I'll keep this arrangement exactly how it is."

Amy sighed. "Ah well, worth a shot." She pulled out the notebook she was working on the cold case files in and set it on the table. "So I know that you said you don't know anything about this, but think you could take a look at it all the same? I'll give you a cut of my bonus if you help me get anything back to my boss on this."

Morph made a little grumbly noise but pulled the notebook to his side of the table anyway, flipping through the pages of loopy handwriting and occasionally stopping to read something more carefully. Finally he pulled out his pen, the same one as the last time, and scrawled something on the last page. "Try that. I'm not promising anything but Hannah heard some drifter types were hanging out there. If your guys are in the city that's where they'll be, and if not, there should be someone there who could help you."

Amy took the notebook back and looked at the address he had written on the page in an all-capitals font. _NUMBER THIRTEEN LADYBONES ROAD._ "Thanks, Morph. Anything's helpful. Maybe hook me up with that Hannah girl of yours?"

Morph snorted. "No way. She's staying out of this, she said she had enough to do with the cops."

Amy decided not to ask.


	3. The Sea Is Treacherous

CHAPTER TWO: The Sea Is Treacherous, Just Like The Moebians

I.

Amy spent the afternoon looking for Ladybones Road, a place which she had never heard of and showed up on no maps. She was starting to think Morph had just given her an address as a roundabout way of telling her to go fuck herself (fair, since she was the one who pressed, but also rude, because she could have used the afternoon for something else) when she finally found it, a Dumpster in the back alley of some street on the east side that had LADYBONES ROAD spraypainted on the side.

Amy looked down the alley. Probably dangerous. Definitely some addicts. Likely sharp glass. A possibility to get stabbed.

She decided she liked the odds and set off down the alley, navigating broken bottles, garbage bins, and the occasional insentient cat until she finally found it. A side door in a building—or, she supposed, the front, since it looked like the building was hidden from the streets on either side—with NUMBER THIRTEEN LADYBONES ROAD painted on the front. And a skull and crossbones. Charming. The windows were overlaid with bars, and a chain-link fence sat less than an inch away from the filthy brick walls, with weeds growing in between.

Amy frowned and knocked on the door anyway.

Someone opened it and an eye poked through. "Who're you?" came a raspy voice.

"Er. A friend sent me here to look for someone—Morph. Who is friends with Hannah? I don't know if you'd know either of them." Amy smiled widely, playing up her innocent appearance. It had been years since she'd genuinely been naïve enough to say anything like that without a hand behind her back on the grip of her pistol just in case the person on the other side decided they didn't like her tone and tried to jump her.

The eye narrowed. "Hannah, huh? One sec." The door slammed. Amy heard some muffled talking from inside, and then it opened again, wider this time, to reveal the girl standing in the doorway, a human with dirty grey hair and a surprisingly youthful face. "C'mon in. Hannah hasn't sent us wrong yet."

Amy stepped through the door. "I'm looking for a few people, or anyone who could send me to them. Er—Fiona Fox, Lightning Lynx, Sergeant Simian, Predator Hawk, Flying Frog…and Scourge the Hedgehog."

The girl eyed her suspiciously. "….Yeah, I might be able to help ya out there a bit. Call me Farz, now come on."

Amy followed her down the dark hallway, looking at the peeling wallpaper and rotting wood. "Is that your real name?"

"Real enough for you, snoop," Farz shot back. "What's your name then?"

"Rosie." She wasn't sure what in her said to use Morph's nickname for her. Something just did. Besides, if Farz hadn't recognized her yet, she wasn't about to change that. "Who were you talking to?"

"You sure have a lot of questions, don't'cha?" Farz grumbled. "It was someone. Doesn't matter, c'mon." She opened one of the doors and stepped inside. The back wall was lined with hospital cots, dirty needles sitting on a tray.

Amy suddenly realized exactly where Morph had sent her and sighed inwardly. Not just a contact, then, some kind of aboveground haven for the criminal underworld. And drugs. Of course there were drugs.

She could deal with that later, send someone else out to take this place down. But for now, Farz was over at one of the cots, shoving at the shoulder of the lump. "Yo. Strade. Gettup."

Whoever it was groaned and sat up. Amy blinked in curiosity at the figure, then inhaled deeply. Strade Ramon. One of the other three cold case files from the mass breakout.

"Girlie's got some questions for ya."

"Copper?" Strade mumbled.

"Nah, man, Hannah sent 'er." Farz beckoned Amy over. "Rosie here. Go quick."

Amy nodded and opened the notebook, pulling out the photos of the Destructix. "Recognize these guys?" she asked, handing them over.

Strade took them, eyes widening in immediate recognition. "Oh! Yeah, those were—those were those guys who started the riot! They were the first to get out, too. Rest of us were out by the skin of our teeth." He grumbled. "Been laying low since, thought no one'd expect a Prime Zoner and I haven't met my counterpart. Prob'ly dead if he's got as much self-preservation as I've got…"

Amy chuckled politely. "Do you know where any of them are now?"

"Nah, sorry. Last I heard they'd hightailed it back for Snot's home place." He tapped the photo of Scourge. "Surprised I haven't heard from them, now that I think about it. He was a fuckin' pushover, but you always knew where he was…"

None of that sounded like Scourge at all, but Amy let it slide. "And the others?"

"Woulda followed the girl, who woulda followed him, I guess. So yah'd find 'em all there if they're anywhere." He handed back the photos.

"Moebius…" Amy muttered. "I wouldn't've thought they'd go back there."

"Yeah? They were smart they'd be here now. Laying low. Get some kinda day job 'till you're sure of your plans."

"That what you did?"

Strade snorted. "That's what I tried."

Farz took Amy's arm. "C'mon, Rosie, let's go. Strade's gonna get all bitchy again if you keep asking him about why he's here, he always does, it's not even a good story."

"Thank you," Amy called to Strade as Farz led her out of the room.

They returned to the small damp room Amy had entered in. Farz looked her over critically. "You probably shouldn't come back here 'less you got something real important to ask, a'right?"

"Got it." Amy nodded.

"Thanks. 'Preciate it." She opened the door. "Now get out."

II.

Amy should have called the Commander once she was off Ladybones Road. She didn't.

She especially should've called him when she was home safe and enough time had elapsed that they might not associate a bust with the "snoop" visitor. She didn't.

Instead, she took out her map of the city, marked the turnoff to Ladybones Road with a little red X, and put it back.

Who knew. It could come in handy someday, having an ex-con and a junkie's agent around.

III.

_You said: _Thanks for the tip. I've got a lead.

_Morphy said:_ No probs Rosie. Who met ya?

_You said:_ Some Farz. Talked to a Strade.

_Morphy said:_ No kiddin, Strade's back in town? What a bastard.

_Morphy said_: He cheated me out of fifty dollars once.

_You said_: You know he's an ex con right?

_Morphy said: _No shit Sherlock.

_Morphy said_: half the population of Ladybones is.

_You said_: what's the other half?

_Morphy said:_ junkies mostly. Sometimes hobos. Sometimes winos.

_You said_: You're surprisingly well connected with the criminal underworld for someone who claimed to have no association.

_Morphy said_: now when did I ever say that?

_Morphy said:_ hah, kidding. I mean I never did say that but

_Morphy said_: my coworkers visit Ladybones. I don't.

_You said_: why not if you've got friends there?

_Morphy said_: wouldn't call strade a friend. And since I'm not calling strade a friend, wouldn't call Farz a friend either.

_You said_: Ah. A Thing.

_Morphy said_: if that's the way you wanna call it.

IV.

Amy spent her evening looking at the other three files, the ones she had been ignoring in favor of the obvious focus. Specifically, she looked at the file belonging to Strade Ramon, imprisoned on charges of engineering designer drugs that nearly took down an entire dimension, and even more specifically, at his connections to a mysterious Prime Zoner who assisted him in his research.

He hadn't had any contact with the Destructix while they were in prison, though. There wasn't much at all about the Destructix's time in prison. Amy had to wonder if it'd been written down in the short time they were there or if the Zoners were just withholding information to try to make this more difficult on the Commander.

It occurred to her as she was grabbing her jacket that she didn't know when Morph had become her go-to contact outside of work, but he had. She sighed and called him as she headed for the elevator.

"'Sup?"

"Morph? It's Amy."

A pause on the other end of the line. "Oh! Rosie. Yeah. What'cha want?"

"Went to see that place of yours. It might've given me a good idea." She balanced the phone on her shoulder. "Some guy in there, another prisoner who broke out, said they _should_ be on Moebius, but he thought that they'd be _here_. On-planet. That narrows it down significantly."

Morph snorted on the other end. "See, for me, narrowing down is like. The street name."

"I think you just have high standards." The elevator dinged and Amy stepped on. "Where are you?"

"Finishing my shift."

"Great. I'll see you there." She didn't wait for a response before hanging up as the elevator reached the ground floor, stepping off and heading out the door for the bus stop.

One ride on the 45 later and she was back outside the mechanic's. The bell dinged as she entered and the employee at the desk looked up. "Ey, it's you. Morph's girl. He's clocking out now."

Sure enough, Morph was rounding the corner, grease and oil staining his muzzle and overalls. He started when he saw Amy, his glasses dislodging slightly from their place. (They still didn't have lenses, a part of Amy observed, but she paid it no mind.) He ran his fingers through his quills. "Thought you were kidding."

"Nah. I can walk you home and we can talk."

Morph shook his head, almost too frantically. "No. All-night diner?"

Amy squinted at him. "You can't possibly be hungry."

"It's exhausting work."

"That's bull," she said. The counter guy was watching with interest and she glanced over. "Shoo."

"This is my job."

"You see anyone else in here?" She gestured. "Shoo. Come back when there's a customer."

The cashier scampered off. Amy glared at Morph. "Where d'you live, Morph?"

Morph rubbed the back of his head. "A place. With a bed. That I definitely have."

Amy's face fell. "Morph. We're friends now, right?"

"We met each other last Sunday and it is barely Saturday evening. Slow down."

"I most certainly will not slow down. I think of you as a friend, and as a friend—not as an agent—I'm asking you where you live."

Morph sighed. "Sometimes on Ladybones Road—not Farz's place, another one. Sometimes in the supply closet."

Amy stared. "Wow. Just—okay, I'm not going to do anything about that now, but this isn't over." She jammed a finger into his chest. "I've gone and gotten myself attached to you. It's rare I have a non-work friend. So don't even give me any shit, I'm gonna figure out what to do with you. But that's not the point. The point is, I'd like your help narrowing it down further as to where these guys might be on the planet."

Morph looked relieved for a second at the change in topic, then scowled. "No. You said I didn't have to work with your government."

"I'm not asking you to work with the government. I'm asking you to work with me, as a favor to a friend. Can you do that?"

"Don't act like I'm a child."

"Then stop behaving like one. Oh, waah, I hate the government and the government hates me, big whoop. The government hates everyone. Are you gonna help or not?"

Morph stared and then sighed. "Yeah. Fine. Whatever, Rosie. Text me pics of the files and I'll see what I can do for you."

"Much obliged." Amy stormed out of the shop. On the surface she was fuming, but below there was lingering doubt. She'd truly gone and gotten herself attached to this weirdo, the mechanic who saved her life and sent her to the criminal underbelly to solve a case. And he apparently was sleeping in supply closets and wouldn't take her offer of a job.

Okay then. She could work with this. She could figure out exactly what the hell was up with Morph, and get him to confirm it.

But for now she needed pictures of the files.


	4. We Knew The River Would Rise

CHAPTER THREE: We Knew The River Would Rise But We Still Didn't Fix The Levee

I.

_Amy Rose's Notes on Morph Following Two Months of __Acquaintanceship__ Friendship:_

_Probably not his full name_

_Knows Farz and Strade well enough to know where they are, doesn't know them well enough to send me under his own recommendation_

_Sleeps in supply closet_

_Wears glasses without lenses_

_Terrible haircut_

_Strong enough to lift an anvil fairly easily_

_Likes his work_

Amy paused and tapped the end of her pen against her lips.

_Doesn't talk except to me_

_Knows who the owner of Mephisto's is._

Nine. One more.

_Friend, but probably a dangerous one._

II.

_You said: _What's your full name?

_Morph said:_ what gave it away

_You said:_ Idk just thought your parents didn't hate you THAT much

_Morph said: _Haha, they did. But nah. Morpheus.

_You said_: Last name?

_Morph said:_ pushy aren't you

_Morph said_: maybe someday

_You said_: I worry about you.

_Morph said_: in what way? ;)

_You said_: all ways.

_You said_: I don't think youre who you say you are

_You said_: you there?

_Morph said_: no one's who they say they are

III.

_Plan to Get Morph To Tell Me His Secret_

_Pretend to know secret. See if he falls for it._

_Play 20 Questions and hope he answers without thinking_

_Pretend to know a different secret, hope mine is worse so he will try to clear his name_

_Seduce him?_

Amy scratched out that last one. Terrible, terrible plan. She'd save that. Last resort.

Really, the first one would probably work the best. If she texted him he'd have time to cover. She'd have to ask in person.

IV.

She went over it all again, focusing on the smaller details this time. Unfortunately, she was no television detective; she couldn't remember any of them well enough, and hadn't noticed when he'd been right in front of her.

Amy huffed and pushed her notes away, crossing her arms. She took a lap around her apartment, then around the block; she met up with Tails for a bit and had bubble tea at a café with high stools and a counter in front of a window to the street.

Tails sipped thoughtfully at the overlarge straw. "What, are we not good enough for you?"

Amy laughed and punched him in the arm. "Hardly! But it's always work."

"It's not right now."

"Not five minutes ago we were talking about the cold-case files."

"Touche." Tails sucked up another of the little black bubbles. "What's this guy got that we don't?"

"He works at a garage, not at GUN. Does he need anything else?"

"If he's as sketchy as you say he is, maybe." Tails set down the tea and swiveled on the high stool to face Amy. She resolutely stared at the city. "Are you in trouble, Amy? We can help you out."

"No, I don't think I'm in trouble." She dropped her chin into her hand and watched a car pass by. "I think he might be. Or that he is trouble. But I don't think I'm in trouble, as a result."

"That's good, at least." Tails sighed. "I'm believing you on this, Amy. I hope you're not wrong and you're not going to get in trouble."

"That's the last thing that I want." Amy turned to face Tails and slowly took a suck of her bubble tea, so slow that he started to laugh. She started to laugh, too, the bubble tea bubbling in its cup as she pushed air through the straw.

"You're being ridiculous." Tails gave her a little shove and she pretended to fall off the seat. "Fine, fine. I trust you. You know what's dangerous."

"I work for a covert government organization following my retirement from the private sector, of course I know what's dangerous."

"Really? Because I could name a few incidents…"

Amy pushed him off the chair for real. He took the bubble tea with him, and they spent the next ten minutes wiping it up off the floor, laughing, laughing.

V.

The Freedom Fighters disbanded when their youngest member, Tails, was sixteen. Amy was eighteen at the time.

It had been a teary, proper disbanding, too, not a spur of the moment decision made in anger. They had thought it out long and hard; none of them were kids anymore, not even Tails, who'd seen much more than your usual sixteen-year-old. Ultimately they'd decided it was for the best if they went their separate ways, kept in touch, let themselves move on from idealistic views and hopes and dreams.

Amy and Tails moved to Station Square and took up with G.U.N. Sally stayed in the Republic of Acorn and took over the day-to-day duties of running a kingdom (and by all accounts was doing a stellar job of it). Sonic was…everywhere? Nowhere? He'd show up, save the day, run off, not be seen for three months, be presumed dead, funerals would be held, and then he'd show up again having been in some remote village learning the way of the cuckoo bird or something. Rotor went to join Dmitry on Angel Isle, fixing the world's problems from the sky. Bunnie and Antoine took the latter's retirement funds early and buggered right off towards the desert with the intent of liberating Bunnie's family; last Amy heard, they'd succeeded and started a small town of cybernetically enhanced beings, with one particular city guard who was effective with a sword. And that just stopped all arguments.

And time had passed. Two years of it. Amy and Tails grew closer, taking jobs together once Amy started working for-contract at G.U.N. instead of as a general agent. Sonic would come by and drop off gifts from whatever far-flung universe he'd been visiting by way of the Interstate lately (who knew multiversal spoon collection was a thing? Amy's favorite was the commemorative spoon from the Zone Jail and one from a universe where she was crossdressing as a male mortician). She got emails from Sally and the occasional invitation to some kind of party. She went to one, once. It was full of people in suits and Amy felt wildly out of place.

It was a long time ago, that Amy was the girl in the red dress.

VI.

It was getting colder.

VII.

_Amy said_: hey I need your help with something.

_You said_: another drug den to get into?

_Amy said: _haha no

_Amy said_: I need to buy a coat

_You said_: why do you need me for that?

_Amy said_: well don't strictly speaking NEED

_Amy said_: I'll buy you lunch :)

_You said_: will you buy me a coat

_Amy said_: sure. We'll make it a day.

_You said_: alright where do we meet

_Amy said_: here I'll give you an address meet me there in thirty

VIII.

They made it a day.

Amy dragged Morph in and out of stores with her, bugging him until he grudgingly tried on various outfits she provided for him. She got the coat she'd wanted and the matching cloche hat; it was really a shame that no one wore those, they were super cute on her. Morph actually looked grudgingly impressed by her choices in clothing. "I would've thought more pink."

"I've found that pink's more effective as an accent," she said, looking in the mirror of a boutique as she held a shirt in front of herself. "On greys and whites, especially. But dark pink on black can look nice too. What do you think of this one?"

"S'a bit much with all the rhinestones."

"Yeah….I thought so too." She tossed it aside and examined her haul once more before pulling her coat back on and heading for the registers. "You know, I'll buy you things if you want. I have the money and you're helping me with a case. It's only fair."

"I don't need anything."

"Bullshit. You wear that same shirt every day. It's not even a nice shirt." She plucks at the fraying sleeve. "It's a terrible color. What is that, periwinkle?"

"I dunno. Heather. Why do I know what color that is?"

Amy laughs. "C'mon. Just one or two things. It'll make me feel better."

"…Fine."

At the next store, Amy shoves things at him as she finds her own and forces him into a dressing room and out again, surveying all the things she gives him and rejecting them at a whim. Finally they have something suitable for him and she smiles. "Now was that so hard?"

"I think I dislocated something when you pulled off that one shirt," he mutters, rubbing at his shoulder. The heather shirt is back on.

Amy is about to put things in their proper piles—to buy, to put back—when she notices something odd. "Oh…this one's damaged." She pulls the shirt out and examines it. "Marker or something else. Something…."

She trails off and looks up at Morph, who's rubbing at his shoulder still, but whose movements slow as she stares. Morph, whose fur is the same shade as the brown that's rubbed off onto the shirt.

Amy moves in closer. He doesn't try to get away; probably because they're in the tiny back changing area of a crowded store. Really, it would be too easy for her to spin that any way she wanted it. But she doesn't want to spin it.

She takes his hand and rubs the shirt against his arm, staring at the fabric as it lifts off brown. She rubs harder, trying to scrub it out, and slowly the brown of his arm fades into a messier color, the brown clinging to the fur, the green underneath.

IX.

Two months ago Amy Rose followed a monster down an alleyway and then followed up by chasing down the mechanic that killed it.

She probably shouldn't have done that, given what happened next.

X.

Amy sets the shirt aside and stares at the man in front of her, her friend of two months. Morph, who went with her to the cafes and helped her with her cases and texted her at odd hours with strange questions he probably could have googled.

He takes the shirt again and lifts it, tugging and rubbing at his ear until the color's come off. Green, underneath, same as the fur on his arm. Not a lime green, something subtler. Emerald. Amy had always thought it was a rather nice color, one wasted on its bearer.

The shirt goes down again and he pulls the heather-colored one over his head. One green ear, a green patch on his arm, various places around his shoulders and upper back where the dye rubbed out, spines cut short and grown back in badly, and the Roman numeral for two carved onto his chest. Amy remembers the day he showed up with those scars and the new colors. She wonders how she never noticed how icy Morph's eyes were before.

"Well," she says finally. "That happened."


	5. The UF Killed All My Friends Somehow

CHAPTER FOUR: The United Federation Killed All Of My Friends Somehow

They cut his spines in Amy's bathroom sink.

Well, first they went back to Amy's apartment. Scourge honestly seemed too startled and out of place to do anything about it when she marched him out of the store, shirt back on, onto the bus, and back to the building. Amy's statement and subsequent silence had evidently knocked him off guard more than she'd thought it had.

It was kind of a good feeling. A job well done. She'd never managed to make anyone speechless before; this was a definite first.

"Nice place, Rosie," he said as they approached the building.

"What happened to the quiet? I liked that much better; I'm beginning to get rather peeved with you."

"Oh, really?"

"Well, my first non-work friend in months turns out to be a wanted criminal and supervillain." She turned to him. "Yeah, I'm not happy with you! But we're going to go get you a haircut and then we're talking to the Commander."

Scourge froze. "Er. Come say what now?"

"We'll talk inside." Amy grabbed his wrist and dragged him into the building and onto the elevator, ignoring the wink from the doorman and pressing the button for her floor. "Now c'mon. Do you want to dye your spines back or not?"

"That'd make me pretty damn noticeable. Not to mention full body dyes take a while, I should know."

Amy looked him over critically. "Well, yours is cheap. It looks terrible. We're dying it back, or you're taking a shower until it's out."

She ended up reading a book while Scourge took over her bathroom. He was in the shower for almost an hour, used up two bars of soap, and came out looking surprisingly pleased with himself, all the brown washed out of his spines to leave them a dirty sort of green. It could have been better. It also could have been worse.

It was easier, now, not to think of him as Morph, her friend.

Distantly she recognized that it was probably _really bad_ that she was pushing her feelings about the whole situation aside like that, and Vanilla would probably call it a bunch of psychological things for "not good", but whatever. She'd deal with it.

She dragged a kitchen chair into the bathroom and pushed him into it, manhandling the setup until it was back-to-the-sink and he had a towel around his neck. He looked rather apprehensive. "Er, listen, Rosie, can't say I love the—"

"Still mad with you. Shut up." She found a pair of scissors and the razor she used to keep her own spines neat and set to work.

Spine trimming could be painful. From the way Scourge tensed, she could tell that he'd really only had that sort of experience before. Almost made her feel bad for him.

_He lied to me. Pretended to be my friend, lied to me. For two months, no less._

Still, she did her best, not going too fast and not hitting the nerve endings that could sometimes make themselves known in quills. At one point she missed and nicked a blood vessel; she heard Scourge hiss on the chair and felt him jolt away. She put a hand to his head and slammed him back into place.

Honestly, the whole thing felt wildly strange. Not something she ever could have seen herself doing in the past, cutting the spines of the wanted criminal she was supposed to be catching, offering him a job, thinking of him as a friend.

She continued to cut, quietly stewing on that last bit. Morph had been her friend. She'd thought he'd been her friend, keeping some kind of secret from her. And when she knew what it was she was starting to wish she didn't. Morph had been charming, a little awkward, confident when she knew him. Scourge was dangerous.

He was also letting her manhandle him into the chair, a move that was so Morph that she couldn't quite see where the two separated.

Maybe they didn't.

No. They did. This was a job. She was going to use him to find the rest of the Destructix and then throw him at the mercy of the Commander, and probably the Zone Cops to boot. She could think afterward about how she had no one but Tails and Cream to play video games with. Or shop with.

"So why'd you bring me back here?" he asked finally. "You could've just turned me in. They would'a cut my spines too."

"Oh, no way. I've got plans for you." She trimmed at a stray spine at the nape of his neck, frowning at the way they spread into every direction. This would take work. "You know where to find the rest of your old gang. And if you don't, you know how to help _me_ find them. Locking you up is the last thing we want to do with you, if you cooperate."

"And if I don't cooperate?"

"You'll cooperate."

"How do you know that?"

"You had two months to run. Why didn't you then?"

He didn't answer. Amy smirked at the mirror. "That's what I thought. You actually like spending time with me."

"Give me a break, Rosie, you haven't changed."

"Say that all you like, I know I'm not the girl you knew. At least part of you liked being with me, or you would've left."

Scourge fell silent in the chair. Amy shaped and trimmed the spines, trying to get them manageable once more.

"Ouch!"

Amy looked down at the spines. Her fingertips were coated in blood and Scourge was scowling in pain. She'd gone too deep, hit one of the vessels and kept going.

"Gonna apologize, Rosie?"

"No." She continued to cut in silence.

"….What would I be doing with you, if I agreed?"

"Going on cases with me."

"Do you kill people?"

Amy didn't much like to think about that particular aspect. "Well, they're not very nice people."

"Neither are you, if you're killing them. Do you get paid?"

"Always."

"So you're a mercenary."

"I only work for one group. I'm an assassin. And a spy, and the public face of the organization."

"Doesn't that last one make the first two a little difficult?"

"The opposite, actually. Anyone who knows about them doesn't stick around long enough to blab."

In the mirror, Scourge looked mildly frightened for a moment before composing himself. Amy smiled inwardly. Good. It had been a long time since she was the girl in the red dress, fighting for truth, justice, and the Mobian way. "What do you want from me?"

"I want your help, and I want to make sure you don't go running off without giving it to me." She grinned at him in the mirror. "And until I get my life back, you're getting more than you bargained for when you tried to lie. You're gonna be my partner. You're gonna stay here, and help me, and we're not going to let anyone know about that until you've found the rest of the Destructix at the _very _least."

She wiped off the scissors, trimmed away the last few quills, and sighed. "There. Now you look presentable, and not like you just stumbled out of the garage."

"I left the garage a few hours ago, technically I did just stumble out."

"We don't want you looking like that."

"I regret killing the monster."

"I bet you do." Amy washed the scissors in the sink and put them back in the cabinet with the razor. "Come on. We never finished the shopping."

II.

So they finished their shopping, because Amy wasn't about to let this snafu get in the way of her coat. She got him a coat, too, and called it a contraction gift. He seemed to like it. It was still leather, like his old one, but lined inside. An old bomber jacket from a consignment shop, actually. She'd tried to sell him on a puffy winter coat but he hadn't gone for that.

It ended up taking the rest of the evening. They went back to the last store they'd visited and Amy purchased the clothes for Scourge, and a bag to put them in, and new boots. She took him down to the open-air farmer's market she preferred and only rolled her eyes a little when he grumbled about rabbit food.

"You don't mind it at Mephisto's." She dropped a small vine of tomatoes into her basket.

"Mephisto's grills everything in truly disgusting amounts of grease."

"You could ask them not to do that."

"That's what makes things palatable!" he protested, following her. "They've got to really be there, otherwise what's the point?"

"The point is it's healthy for you." She swatted him on the nose with an ear of corn. "Go find the mushrooms, we're making stir-fry."

"Right. We." He crossed his arms. "What's this about staying with you?"

"You're crashing on the couch so I can keep an eye on you. I intend to lock the door."

"What kind of door locks for the inside?"

"My kind. I was thinking ahead, to when I'd have to house a rogue supervillain in order to find his friends."

"How prescient of you. Perhaps you're in the wrong line of work. You should be a phone psychic."

Amy held up her hand to her ear. "It's ten bucks a minute! Yeah, I predicted you were gonna hang up…" She laughed. Scourge laughed.

It wasn't that different from being with Morph, actually. Which made sense—they were the same person, she knew that. But it was hard to think of it that way. She hadn't had much dealing with Scourge back in the day, but he'd been very different from Morph, even from the one now using a large pepper as a phone to complain to customer service ("there's no customer service for phone psychics!").

They paid for the groceries and took the train back to Amy's apartment. Amy ignored everyone staring at them. Scourge, apparently, couldn't. He kept shrinking into his new jacket.

"Man up," she told him. "People are gonna stare. Get used to it."

"They don't stare at you for the same reasons. It's different. They all want to kill me."

"And rightly so, since you tried to subjugate us."

"Okay, that was a long time ago, and—"

"Look." Amy glared at him, half annoyed and half almost protective. "You let them stare. And if any of them try to bring shit up with you, you lie through your teeth. You lie like a rug. You tell them you're not him, that you get that a lot, that the resemblance is uncanny. With the coat and the spines no one can really tell if you insist it hard enough."

"Thought you hated the lying."

"Make it work for you. Or lie until it becomes the truth. Until you're not him anymore." She looked up. "Oh, we're here."

Amy dragged him off the train and into the building, back up to the apartment, and locked the door with a key from the kitchen that she then looped onto a chain and hung around her neck. "There's some spare bedding in the bathroom closet, go ahead and pull that out. You can sleep on the couch but there's no reason not to be civil about it."

She chopped up mushrooms as Scourge searched for and found a plain white sheet set and a quilt Bernadette had made for her. He made a face. "What's this?"

She looked up. "It's a quilt. S'my spare blanket. You'll be using it. Problem?"

"It's got hearts on it."

"And little smiling suns, see? Go on, now, make up the couch, I can't do everything around here." She dumped the vegetables into the pan and let them sizzle.

Soon enough Amy had stir-fry on the stove and Scourge had set up the couch as something remotely resembling a bed. She nodded. "Excellent. Get some food if you want some."

He got some, and devoured stir-fry surprisingly fast for someone who had been deriding rabbit food not an hour prior. "What now?"

"Now, it's nearly ten PM. We go to bed."

"What, no vibrant nightlife?" He stood, though, and headed for the couch.

"Not after the day I've had." Amy poked her head out of the doorway as she headed into the bedroom. "You got a toothbrush?"

"Back at my old place."

"Pity. We'll get you one tomorrow. You're not using mine."

"C'mon, Rosie, isn't it romantic?"

"Is that all you think about?" She laughed. "There's more important things in life than getting the girl—or the guy, in my case."

"Ah, so that's what changed. You got dumped." He nodded.

"I was never with your brother in the first place. What changed is that I accepted that. I prefer friends anyway. Less to worry about there." She shrugged, leaning on the doorframe. "Thought you'd've known that."

He had an odd expression. "You thought we were friends?"

"Did me saying that all day not convince you?"

"Not really."

"God, haven't you ever had friends?" She rolled her eyes. "I've at least got a few." And with that she headed into the bedroom, slammed the door, and collapsed, fully clothed, onto her bed. Within moments she was asleep.

III.

It was surprisingly easy to relax with a murderer and escaped convict in the next room. Sleeping was harder, but that was no fault of Amy's new wayward housemate. She stared at the ceiling, hands folded over her stomach and blanket tucked up neatly to her chest, for nearly an hour before finally sighing and getting up again.

She padded into the kitchen, quieter than she normally would have out of courtesy for Scourge. She suspected that if anyone else had been there they'd have egged her into being as loud as possible, but that would do no favors for the insomnia, and she wanted something out of him. So she opened the fridge a crack, pulled out a bowl of grapes, and sat at the kitchen table eating them and staring at the wall.

This was difficult. This was more than difficult and she hadn't had time to properly think about it yet. Hadn't wanted to have time—so she spent the day cutting his hair, and taking him shopping twice, and on and off the train. But now, in the quiet of the apartment, intercut by shifting on the couch (entirely more noise than was usual at midnight there; she often found herself in the kitchen, alone in the silence), things were different. Difficult.

Amy rolled a grape between her fingers and considered. She was housing a convict on her couch, in hopes that he could continue to give her under-the-table information regarding the location of his fellow escaped convict friends; information she didn't know if he had or not. After all, he had been at the mechanic's for a while. Perhaps he hadn't even seen them. Maybe it was unrelated.

Okay, yeah. No. It was related. But there was a step missing in there. Somewhere between _escaping from prison with girlfriend and gang-mates_ and _homeless mechanic for some time_ there was a step. There was a step—down? Up? What had it been like, in prison? What had it been like with Fiona if he left? Or maybe it was a step down, in fact, and Fiona was dead. That was a possibility, and not one she was keen to broach. Had he had a choice? Had he left of his own accord? Had they made him leave? Was it a long con, a way to spread throughout the multiverse? The others could be out there, doing much the same, flying under the radar bar an unusual circumstance. Or they weren't out there at all—or the missing step was a falling-out, and they were hunting him—or—or—

There were too many possibilities, too many variables. Amy ate another grape and closed her eyes, trying to clear her mind a bit. That in the morning. She'd ask him, question him in the morning. Even if he lied, it could give her information. Sometimes more information than the truth.

A long con, and now a literal con was on her couch, under a blanket with hearts and suns with smiling faces, on top of floral sheets, a bomber jacket and spare clothes shoved under the coffee table. Who she met as someone else two months ago, who she got to know without the prior expectations, who had been homeless and working as a mechanic, who knew that cold iron killed monsters and was strong enough to haul an anvil up to the roof quickly enough to help when he saw Amy coming.

Amy bounced a grape off the wall and ate another one, trying not to think about anything at all. Over in the living room, the figure on the couch shifted, curled up tight in the blanket. Amy didn't look over at it as she stood and carried the grapes back to her bedroom, set them on the nightstand, grabbed a bottle of sleeping pills and swallowed one dry, lay back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling until she finally drifted off.

IV.

Once in a while, during the night, Amy stirred, thinking she'd heard something. But when she woke, each time, there was nothing.


	6. You Want To Be My Partner?

CHAPTER FIVE_: _You Want To Be My Partner? First You Must Answer These Riddles Three

I.

Amy had often been told that she was something rarer than rare. Something unique, even; that everyone else did it the exact opposite way, and that she and she alone had that most special of traits.

Amy Rose was a morning person.

She woke surprisingly refreshed from her nice calm sleep near a killer and turned on the radio, not really caring if she woke up her new housemate. She was dancing around the kitchen and cooking eggs when he raised his head groggily and blinked at her.

"That's loud. You're loud."

"Deal with it." She cracked an egg over the pan and watched it sizzle, turning the radio up further and letting the pop-rock song blare through the apartment. She glanced over at Scourge, then started singing along, deliberately off-key. "_I'm not a means to an end, I'm not your best friend!"_

"Why are you singing."

"_Better believe, that if you're dancing with me—"_ She let go of the pan and wandered to the living room to yank him off the couch and force him into a stiff little dance. "_You might just find that you're dancing with the devil toniiiiiight!"_

Scourge scowled. Amy grinned. "Want some eggs?"

"…Sure."

"Great! Eggs are in the fridge and pans are in the cabinet next to the stove." She released him and he fell to the floor with a soft _oof_ sound.

"I thought you were offering."

"Nope! You work for a living here, pal." She returned to her egg, adding salt and pepper, collecting the toast from the toaster and swiping butter and jelly onto it, and finally settling at the kitchen table to eat. Scourge made his way over, grumbling all the while, but did manage to find the eggs.

"What are you doing?" Amy asked after a minute.

"Cooking eggs. Am I not doing that?"

"Well, the stove actually has to be on. No, no that much."

Scourge wrinkled his nose. "This is complicated."

"For gods' sakes, it's scrambled eggs. Give me a break." Amy rolled her eyes. "Stove on medium heat. Use a spatula to scramble the eggs."

"How do I make it like yours?"

"A sunny side up egg? I'm not trusting you with that, you'd set the pan on fire." Amy went back to her breakfast and quickly regretted that decision when she smelled smoke. "….Scourge?"

"Yes, Rosie?"

"Is that pan on fire?"

"The pan itself is not on fire."

"Are the contents of the pan on fire?"

"They may be."

"And the stove?"

"Let's not talk about the stove."

Amy got the fire extinguisher.

II.

She had been living with Scourge for less than twenty-four hours and he was already proving to be a more than tiring housemate. Amy had a bit of a conflict about that. On the one hand, he was an asshole who refused to admit he'd made a mistake, and he proved useless at even the simplest household chore. On the other hand…well.

For a few minutes after the stove incident, she'd fumed quietly, refusing to even look at him out of irritation. Then a few thoughts started to creep into her head, and she sighed to herself and asked him if he had found the orange juice yet, filing away the pesky ideas to go over later.

She grabbed a sheet of notebook paper and a pen and started writing out a to-do list. Scourge peered over her shoulder. "What's that?"

"Our chores."

_Grocery store_

_Get a new stove :(_

_Stakeout of Farz's place_

"How are we going to get a stove up here, anyway?"

"They haul it in through the window on ropes." Amy tucked the to-do list in her pocket and grabbed her coat. "C'mon, time waits for no man after he hath burned down a stove."

"You're joking." She didn't stop moving out the door, and Scourge ran to catch up frantically. "No, really, you can't be serious—they do that?"

III.

Amy had a shopping list and they were at the grocery store. So, theoretically, this should have been fairly simple: you have a shopping list. You find the things on the shopping list. You steal them—or, if you were now the partner of one Amy Rose, you bought them. And then you went home.

"Alright," said Amy, shoving a basket into Scourge's arms. "Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find the strangest item on the shelf. Report back here in fifteen minutes."

Scourge stared at the basket. "What."

"I need to go shopping. I don't trust you to actually do shopping. So you're going to go find something bizarre, and you're going to bring it back to me."

"And what then?"

"Hopefully I'll be done shopping. Go, go, go!" She shoved him.

Ten minutes later, Scourge found her and dumped a pickled watermelon rind and something proclaiming itself a "tapioca loaf" in her cart. "I couldn't decide."

Amy inspected them. "How's a watermelon-rind-and-tapioca-salad sound?"

"Disgusting. Can I put them back?"

"No, we're buying them." She tapped her chin for a minute. "I'm still not done shopping. Your next mission! You will obtain the best ice cream in the store. Report back."

"You just want to eat ice cream, don't you?"

"No questions. Do not question Mission Control! You begin now."

Amy managed to get through a few more items on her list before Scourge returned with pistachio-mint-chip ice cream. He dumped it in the cart and grinned when Amy made a face.

"The hell is that?"

"It's delicious. And green, like me."

Amy's nose wrinkled. "It's two completely incompatible plants battling it out in your mouth."

"Three if you count the corn syrup," Scourge said, looking at the label.

"Okay. Clearly food-retrieval missions are not your strength." Amy hummed, rounding a corner with the cart. "What is your strength?"

"Fixing cars and causing chaos."

"Well, we can't do the first one." She hummed along for a moment with the music playing in the shop, then lit up. "Okay. Mission: break into wherever they play the music from and change it to something ridiculous."

"You're gonna get us kicked out."

"No, _you're_ gonna get us kicked out. Unless you don't think you can do it?"

"I can do anything, Rosie."

"Then prove it!" She waved him off and grabbed a jar of peanut butter off the shelf.

A few minutes later, the strains of a cheerful song for learning about fruits and vegetables—the sort of thing intended for five-year-olds—began to play. A few minutes after that, Amy was smirking as Scourge was escorted out of the grocery store and had to wait for her to check out on the sidewalk.

He sulked when she tried to give him one of the bags, refusing to take it.

"Stop being a baby. That was pretty great."

"I got kicked out of the grocery store. They threatened me."

"You've been threatened before. Hell, you've probably been threatened at the grocery store before!"

"Whatever happened to that goody two shoes in the red dress? I liked her!" Scourge barely had to try to keep up with her as she made her way to the nearest subway station.

"She died," Amy said shortly.

That pretty much ended that conversation.

IV.

"So what do normal people do on a Saturday night?" Scourge asked, draping himself over the edge of the couch as Amy unpacked the groceries.

"I don't fuckin' know." She laughed. "Movies? Skating rink?"

"Skating rinks are dead."

"What." Amy stared at him for a moment. "You take that back!"

He stared her right in the eyes. "Skating. Rinks. Are. Dead."

"No, they're not. I'll prove it. We're going skating."

Scourge had the expression of someone very suddenly realizing they may have miscalculated. Amy grinned. "You don't know how to skate, do you?"

"I know how to skate."

"You don't know how to skate!" 

"I—so what if I don't? It's not exactly a necessary skill when you're fighting for your life on a planet torn by war, or then trying to take it over for shit and giggles!"

"What about in prison? Is skating a necessary skill in prison?"

"The fuck do you think, Rosie."

Amy snorted, tossing the last of the bags in the recycling. "We're going skating. You're learning to skate."

"What happened to me being your informant?"

"Look, do you want to go skating or do you want to spend hours being interrogated about your part in the riot and where your co-conspirators are now?"

Scourge looked like he was caught in headlights. "I—is there a third option?"

V.

Skating rinks weren't dead. Scourge might have been, for all that he was on the floor.

After watching Amy skate circles around him and falling (or being pushed) several times, she finally took him back to a small, blocked in area intended for small children learning to skate. Scourge looked supremely put out by this turn of events, but was at the very least slowly making his way around the mini rink with a hand on the wall. A five year old lynx girl skated past him, giggling.

"This is embarrassing," he muttered, grasping at the wall as he nearly tripped again. Amy leaned against the bars.

"You're getting the hang of it! Trust me, it's fun when you can actually do anything." She grinned and gave a thumbs-up.

Scourge slipped and yelped as his head hit the wall on the way down. "This isn't very fun."

"This is loads of fun. I'm having fun."

"Yeah, I bet you are." He rubbed the back of his head. "Maybe interrogation would have been better."

"We can do both. Here, maybe it'll take your mind off the falling." Amy pushed off the bars and made her way over to him with as much grace and poise as she could manage. She held out a hand and after a moment Scourge took it, refusing to meet her eyes. "Hell, I can try to make it easy for you. We'll start simple." She took his arm and started skating backwards, helping half-pull him around the mini rink. "Did you plan it from the start?"

He shook his head, quickly stopping when he realized that it was putting him off balance. "No."

"Did they?"

"They probably did. Fiona, at least, did. The others followed her. I could say a lot about Fiona then and now, but she made an excellent mercenary."

Amy nodded, lips pursing slightly. "Alright." She helped him around a corner, letting go and moving to his side as he began skating on his own. "Did you know Fiona was coming in to help, then?"

"Didn't have a clue until she showed up."

"Bet you were pretty happy about that."

"The opposite, actually." Scourge lost his footing briefly and flailed for the post, grabbing it at the last second. "I was sure they were gonna get me killed."

Amy silently congratulated herself. The dual focus on skating and answering her questions seemed to make him candid, or at the very least unthinking about it. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. That place was…." His eyes shuttered briefly. "That place wasn't any good. I know I've never really felt as alone as I did in there. No one gave one good goddamn what happened to you."

"Well, it was prison. Kind of in the description."

"Nah. That place was worse. Which I mean—yeah." He shook his head, releasing the wall and gliding forward slightly. "Whole bunch of people showing up to make a new gang around someone who wasn't exactly Miss Congeniality, you're gonna wanna take them out. And no one would care if you did."

"Ah." Amy skated a circle, backwards, and laughed when he scowled at her. "You got out anyway."

"I got out anyway. Not my idea, at first. But I mean, Fiona was convincing. Got my shit together, got the hell out of Dodge."

"What happened after?"

Scourge's face shut down for a moment and he didn't respond. Amy didn't say anything.

"Hey," he said after a second, "I think I've really got a handle on this now."

Amy laughed. "Good for you. Maybe you can put some of that speed to use in races."

Scourge moved his ankle in an experimental circle. "Eh, maybe? It's not quite the same as running. And I'd fall."

"You've already fallen. A lot." Amy glided out of the mini rink and through the concessions, making a sharp turn to face him from the other side of the rink wall. "Coming?"

"Yeah, I'm comin'. Hold tight."


End file.
